WIP : Hasegawa 1/48 F-16C 414th CTS Pt.1

This kit is part of the ‘US Aggressors groupbuild’. Construction went on quite straightforward although there are some problems here and there. Nothing that putty couldn’t fix though. One particularly annoying part is that I have to putty off the holes under the wings meant for underwing stores. Obviously if I was bulding a normal F-16 loaded with a ton of weapons I wouldn’t be bitching.

As per normal with aircraft kits, the cockpit has to be painted first before further construction could be done. It’s simple matter of grey for the whole cockpit tub, black for the control panels, green for the MFD screens and some drybrushing to bring out the detail of the control surfaces.

I decided that with the F-16’s huge canopy, I needed the ejection seat to be more detailed than what came in the box. So I got hold of a pair of ACES II resin seats from Legends Productions, a Korean resin kit manufacturer. The resin seat comes with molded-on seat belts and is generally much more detailed than the default kit seat.

I colored the seat based on references I got from The Ejection Site. A simple wash with diluted black color and some minor drybrushing is all I need to add depth and bring out the fine details of the seat.

Yep. Been awhile. My mates in the groupbuild has also been bugging me no end hehehe. So anyway, a lot has been done and I’m ready to prime the kit, fix some obvious problems then start painting. Small mistakes can be hidden pretty easily since I’m going to do some weathering. I can’t stand clean aircraft. 😛

I tried out a new method of filling the gaps: liquid paper aka correction fluid. This was suggested by a good friend G-Man from the Plamo Forums. Applying is easy: just whack on a dollup onto the gap. Then I ran a cotton bud with Gunze thinner through it, which thins and softens the liquid paper and makes it flow flush. So it works, I’m just now sure how it will look after priming. We’ll see.

I also added all the major not too fragile parts onto the kit, so I can paint in one shot. I guess in this sense, aircraft kits are actually easier to paint than mecha kits. So anyway, all the tiny sensor bumps and blades are added.

Next came the RWR sensors on the wings. These are the major parts that are missing from the kit which is too bad since they are quite obvious on the real aircraft. A bit of a challenge to scratchbuild them since the RWR sensors have an odd shape. They are pretty small so I decided to just make a general likeness hehe.

Oh bugger. It rained in the morning which ended up being a muggy afternoon which isn’t good for any sort of painting. So I couldn’t do the priming. Sigh…

So the only update here is a small old one. The canopy had a big seamline running down the middle so I scraped it off with a hobby knife and slowly sanded the area with ever finer sandpaper, ending with 400 grit. Then I dipped the canopy into Future floor polish to give it a supershine. To top it off, I carefully masked the canopy with Tamiya masking tape. To attach to the kit, I would use white glue as it dries transparent.

Here’s hoping tomorrow will be a bright sunny day…

Alright! Finally the priming’s done and lo and behold… stuff to fix. Man… when will I learn to be more careful during the construction phase? Brrr…

Here are the spots I found on top of the kit that need further fixing.

Not as many problems as I’ve foreseen, but still… it ain’t perfect. Oh well. There were also some problems at the bottom of the kit. During construction, I paid more attention to the top of kit since that’s what everyone will see first (hardly anyone will purposely flip the kit and look at the bottom) so there are actually a lot more problems to fix. However, since it is the bottom afterall, I decided to just fix the major ones hehehe…

The good news in all this is that the RWR sensors turned out very nice and I don’t have to make any further changes to them. Score!